Telecommunications services can be paid for on either a prepaid basis or postpaid basis. For conventional postpaid services, a telecommunications carrier maintains a record of telecommunications services provided to a customer and periodically (e.g., monthly) sends a bill to the customer for the value of the services provided to the customer during the previous billing period.
In contrast, prepaid services require a customer to pay for service ahead of time by transferring a prepaid amount to the customer's balance. The service provider keeps track of the amount that the customer has prepaid and charges for telecommunications services against the balance in the customer's account. When the balance reaches zero the service provider, in general, stops providing service to that customer. In some cases, based on the subscriber account type and configuration, the service provider allows overcharging, i.e., a balance below zero. The overcharging amount is configurable. When the customer overcharges, the balance will show a negative amount.
Prepaid services are popular for customers who cannot obtain credit and/or for customers who are offered more service per dollar with a prepaid account than they can obtain with a conventional postpaid account. For example, a retailer or reseller (hereinafter, reseller) such as Walmart may offer $125 worth of telecommunications charges for $100; the customer buys a scratch card for $100 from Walmart, and provides the data identifying the customer to a telecommunications carrier. The data comprises a scratch card number and a personal identification number (PIN). The card number is printed on the face and the PIN is covered with a plastic film. The customer must scratch the plastic cover to get the PIN, then use both the scratch card number and the PIN to recharge, and the telecommunications carrier initializes the customer's account with the equivalent of $125 worth of services.
A customer dials a 1-800 code to reach the service provider, and provides the card number and PIN to the service provider. The recharge management system can search the database to verify the scratch card and read the face value which is stored in the database. Then the prepaid system converts the face value to units, such as minutes of air time, and adds these units to the customer account. The service provider decrements the number of units in the customer's account as the customer uses the telecommunications services of the service provider.
In part because so many of the prepaid services are tied to promotions, most prepaid services have limits as to the amount that a customer can prepay and store an expiration date by which the prepaid services must be used. For customers who regularly use prepaid services and add to their account when necessary, i.e., when the customer's balance goes to zero or the expiration date is reached, or before, the expiration date is adjusted when the customer adds to his/her prepaid account in accordance with a formula based on the current balance and the increment of the recharge. However, if a customer provides a recharge amount which will cause his/her balance to exceed a maximum (cap) for that customer, the excess is retained (confiscated) by the service provider.
A problem of the prior art is that there is a need for greater flexibility in treating recharge amounts that cause a customer's balance to exceed the balance cap.